


Nightmares and Dreams

by lizandletdie



Series: The Adoption!verse [14]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: kind of a tearjerker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 02:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3158471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bae wakes up from a recurring nightmare, and in attempting to comfort his sister may let his mother know more about how he's feeling than he means to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Let's all blame tinuviel-undomiel for prompting this.
> 
> I hate that I have to do this, but apparently I do. If you're reading this fic anywhere besides AO3, it was posted without my consent and likely profited someone else. Please consider [donating](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=CZNGXGNP4PRX4&lc=US&item_name=The%20Mantis%20Fund&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donate_SM%2egif%3aNonHosted) or swinging by my Tumblr (standbyyourmantis) to let me know what you thought!

Bae didn't have nightmares like that too much anymore. Honestly, he didn't. They'd been pretty bad when he was a kid, and came back when his birth mom had, but the last year or so they had almost completely gone away. The thing was, it was kind of hard to pretend like everything was totally normal when you still remembered the feeling of a woman you didn't recognize saying she was your mom when your actual mom was right there, or your mom shoving you hard towards your dad to get you out of the way of someone who was about to hit her, or the way it sounded when your dad brought a cane down on a man's skull because he was grabbing for you. Bae wasn't sure he'd ever not have nightmares about it at least sometimes.

So he was awake and it was three in the morning and now what the hell was he supposed to do? He could hear little noises from next door, so apparently Katie had woken up, too. Mom was going to be pissed. Katie was sleeping through the night pretty reliably now, so he must have screamed or something. At least the master bedroom was downstairs so he probably hadn't gotten everyone awake – just his eighteen month old sister. Well, he didn't have school in the morning and there really wasn't any sense in letting everybody be awake because he just couldn't hold it together even though he _knew_ he was safe now.

Bae rolled out of bed, hissing a little as his bare feet touched the wood floor, and let himself into Katie's room. She was standing in her crib and screaming now, indignant at having been left alone so long, but she quieted down when she saw him.

“Bae,” she said in her little baby voice, stretching her arms out toward him. “Up.”

He scooped her out of the crib and bounced her on his hip a little. She squirmed to try to get down but he knew if he let her start with her toys she'd never go to sleep, so instead he took her to the rocking chair where all her books were kept and sat her on his lap. She kept wriggling, but settled down when he handed her one of her board books to look at.

“You know, Katie,” he yawned at her. “You're such a lucky kid, you know that?”

She looked at him curiously, but she didn't interrupt. She never interrupted him, and he loved her for that.

“You're the most loved little girl in the world,” he continued. “You don't just have mom and dad, because I love you so so much and I'm never going to let anything bad happen to you, okay?”

She nodded at him, suddenly very serious even though he wasn't sure she understood what he was saying – and she definitely had no idea why it was important.

“Nobody is ever going to try to take you away,” he kept on talking even though he knew she didn't understand this part at all. “I won't let them, because we're a family and you're my sister.”

“Sissy Katie,” she murmured, using the ir mother's pet name for her . “Love you.”

“ I love you too,” he replied, rocking the chair back and forth a little bit.  She was too little to register the unshed tears in his voice . “Who's my best girl?”

“Sissy,” she answered automatically, even though he could tell she was starting to doze a little bit.

It was hard not to be jealous of the little girl cuddled up to him. She would never want for anything, after all. Their parents would be able to provide her with whatever she wanted and needed. She'd never have to watch their mom try to make ends meet, or spend the entire evening at a flower shop because there wasn't anywhere for her to go after school and mom couldn't leave yet. She'd never have to dread the weekend, because that was when she had to be ripped from her mother and sent to stay with strangers who insisted they were her family. She'd never not know their dad. And she would always have Bae. There would be somebody there for her every step of the way to make sure she was happy and okay, no matter what life threw at her she would always have him.

She was so warm and tiny and relaxed now, curled up in his lap with her head on his chest. How did she sleep like that, anyway? Did he used to sleep sitting up? He'd have to ask mom about it sometime, she'd know.

One thing he didn't have to envy Katie for was their mom. Even though they shared her, Bae knew it would be different on an instinctive level. He and Mom had been all each other had for ten whole years before Dad showed up.  Katie was shared between the three of them, but Bae had solely been his mother's his entire life and they shared a certain level of closeness he wasn't sure he'd ever have with anyone else, even with Dad.

When he was sure Katie had finally dropped off, he put her back in her crib, tucked her in, and kissed her goodnight. It was really only a matter of time before she was big enough to climb out of this thing, and he wasn't really sure what his parents had planned for after that. She was getting so damn big.

He turned to go back to his room, and almost woke his sister up again jumping at the sight of his mom lurking in the hallway.

“How long have you been there?” he whispered as he walked into the hall and shut the door as casually as he could, as though he hadn't just been pouring his heart out to a toddler.

“A little while,” she replied. “I heard her crying on the monitor.”

“Oh,” he'd forgotten about that damn thing. “She's okay, I was awake anyway.”

“I figured,” she said with a sadness in her voice that seemed completely bottomless all of a sudden and had him wanting nothing more than to go back to a time when she could fix anything. Before his birth mom and custody battles and whatever else – before he was so very broken and scared. But was there really a time he'd ever believed that she could do that? She'd never been able to stop him having to go on his visitations even though he knew that she wanted to. It didn't matter how much he screamed and cried and begged, he still had to go. He did a really good job not thinking about this most of the time, but it still hurt. He still wanted his mom to be able to rescue him even after all these years when he didn't need it anymore.

“Bae,” she broke into his thoughts softly.

He didn't know what she was going to say, but he knew  _exactly_ what she wanted to say and they both knew it was too late for any of that. It wasn't her fault. None of it was her fault, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt sometimes or that he didn't feel so alone in the family even though he loved them and knew they loved him. None of them were broken in quite the same way he was, and he hoped to God he could keep it that way.

“I'm gonna go back to bed,” he replied, interrupting her before she could gather her thoughts to say something that would have him crying into her nightgown like Katie. He was too old for that anymore. “I'm really alright.”

He added the last part as an afterthought, because he could see in her face that she wanted to believe it but didn't. He wanted to believe it, too. He'd be fine in the morning when daylight drove away the worst of the demons and made it easier to forget who he was and where he'd come from.

“I never said you weren't,” she whispered, reaching out and taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “I just want you to know how much I love you and how very, very proud I am of you. You're such a good big brother and you're growing up to be the best kind of man. I'm glad that you're my son.”

The last was said as she reached up and brushed some of his hair out of his face so gently he felt the okayness he'd been working on since he put Katie to sleep begin to crack. He didn't trust himself to speak, so he just nodded.

“And you can always come to me with anything,” she continued. “I'm always on your side, Bae. No matter what, you're my son and I'm your mother.”

“I know,” he said, swallowing down  the tears that were threatening to burst forth. “I'm tired.”

“Okay,” she replied, releasing him slowly. “Get some rest.”

It really was a good thing he didn't have school the next morning.


End file.
